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NextFab Studio is a membership-based, high-tech workshop and prototyping center- itâ€™s Philadelphiaâ€™s â€œgym for innovatorsâ€. Located in the University City Science Center, on Philadelphiaâ€™s Avenue of Technology, our brand new 3600 square foot facility provides comfortable, clean, and safe workspaces with hand tools, 3D printers, computer controlled machine tools, software, and electronics workbenches. Expert instructors and a community of collaborators are on hand to help you problem-solve and achieve your vision. NextFab Studio has everything necessary for you to invent, repair, create, and innovate!

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I would certainly wish them very good luck with this venture. I only wish we had similar centres in the UK (I don’t know of any yet, certainly none near me).

The problem for such a centre is I think the problem of simply logistics of getting to the centre. If one of these centres is in one city and I’m in another, then it becomes impractical to use, because by the time I get there, I wouldn’t have time to use the equipment. This will limit the success of any one centre to be successful. In that case, for a centre in any city to be a success, it needs a large enough number of people to survive and thrive, which is a major problem for a stand alone centre that was only set-up as a “gym for innovators”. (I’ve thought about this idea before, from a stand alone point of view but it didn’t occur to me about joining forces with a University, which makes much more viable sense).

So what I find so interesting about this centre news, is that its located in a University Science Center, so its a way for the University to simply supplement its existing income and as a result build an additional community of enthusiasts around the centre and the University as a whole (in which case, it may even have other income benefits for a University, by encouraging extra people to sign up for various existing evening classes to learn even more). That’s very interesting because there is no reason why other Universities and colleges worldwide couldn’t follow suit to supplement their existing incomes with this additional use of their existing facilities. That is very interesting and it also makes a lot of business sense for a university. (I think its also a very smart move).

(P.s. if anyone from a London university is reading this, then if your university sets up something similar, you can instantly sign me up. :)

Personman77

Many years ago I actually had a conversation discussing how awesome something like this would be. We even referred to it as “you know, like a gym for …”. Jealous of places like tech shop and the like I never thought the day would come when something like this was available on the east coast let alone in Philadelphia, my home town.